In the past I have been very successful in getting pictures of the moon with color or black&white film.
For some reason I'm having great difficulty in getting it digitally. I don't get any surface detail. the image looks like the reflection of the sun.
Any body have any suggestions to get a better digital image.

Well the moon is a daylight lit object so you have to expose accordingly. This sometimes seems strange when shooting at night that you might be shooting the shot at 1/60th at f16, but that is sometimes what the actual exposure is. But in your example, since you want the city scene to show, you obviously are going to have to do multiple exposures and combine the results.

Here is a shot that was made in the studio, with moon added. Both shot with the Canon 10D.

Here is a photo of just the moon along with the shooting specs from **** data.

Mr. Smith's idea I think is worth persuing and attempting. It's much quicker than mine, if it proves to be sucessful in your endevors. My method has also proven to be sucsessful, but it involves film, and a flatbed scanner. I think you can figure the rest out.

I was just the opposite, I couldn't capture a decent moon till I went digital. One thing to remember is the moon is moving very fast so use a fast shutter speed, steady tripod and a remote release or the timer function with the mirror locked up. Also it looks pretty bad out of the camera, it will require a lot of contrast and sharpen, sharpen, sharpen and then sharpen once more just for good measure!
These, if I can get them to post, were shot with a 10D and 70-200 at 200 w/2X.
Good luck... Dave
[image]http://img128.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc108&image=69dfc_MrMoon.jpg[/image]
[image]http://img124.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc80&image=84bae_Moon_me_baby.jpg[/image]

If you get the exposure right you should not have to do a lot of post processing on moon shots. In other words they should look just fine right out of the camera. If they don't look just fine, and you have to do lots of post processing, then that is a sign that you have the exposure wrong.
Since you'll typically be shooting at a faster shutter speed you don't really need mirror lockup or a cable release. The moon is being lit by direct sunlight, so that means you would expose it about the same as any other subject lit by direct sunlight. I've shot lots of moon shots handheld that came out perfectly. I would typically shoot these at about 5.6 at 1/250th or 1/500th at ISO 100 using my Sigma 70-200 at 200mm.
One large factor, however, is going to be the amount of haze or clouds. Sometimes there will be light clouds that you can't really even see or haze that you can't see, but this will affect the exposure. So what I generally do is to shoot 6 shots at 5.6 or 8 and vary the shutter speed for each. I then take a look at them on the computer and select just the moon and look at the histogram in PS. That way you can pick the proper exposure for the conditions exactly. I shoot moon shots from time to time to just get different phases and different colors (made possible by the amount of haze, dust in the air, etc. Also I get some with light clouds, some while it is still daylight, etc. I keep them in a special folder and then when I need a moonlit scene, I just add the appropriate moon to the shot using PS.
Cheers,
rfs